At dusk the next day, Duan Rong carried a gift box wrapped in red silk. Dense, delicate stitches embroidered the words "Yuan Shun Escort Agency" across the silk, and a ribbon was tied around the gathered opening.
Such expensive gift boxes were not usually given lightly.
Duan Rong himself wore a brand-new Escort Outfit. As the saying went, clothes made the man and saddle made the horse; once he put it on, he immediately looked far more spirited.
By rights, he was only an apprentice escort and had no qualification to wear an Escort Outfit. Yet this set of clothes had been personally fetched for him from the storeroom by Zhou An that morning.
He could hardly attend a banquet at the County Government Office in plain short clothes.
Zhou An led Duan Rong out through a secluded side gate of the Inner Courtyard and into an alley.
At the mouth of the alley stood a Green Sedan, as though it had been waiting there for quite some time.
Carrying the gift box, Duan Rong climbed into the sedan. Zhou An called for the Sedan Carriers to lift it, then carried a lantern and led the way toward the County Government Office.
Whether it was the gift, the Escort Outfit, or this small sedan, all of it had been arranged by Zhou An.
Duan Rong was, after all, an escort of the Yuan Shun Escort Agency. If he went to the County Government Office banquet and lost face, it would be the Yuan Shun Escort Agency's face that was lost. How could Zhou An dare be careless?
Though Zhou An had arranged everything without a single drop leaking through, he felt thoroughly miserable inside!
He was Ruan Fengshan's personal Servant Boy. Ordinarily, even Luan Jingfu had to show him some